A professor at Loyola Marymount University is using art to promote social justice throughout her classes. Saeri Cho Dobson, associate professor of graphic design, teaches her students that graphic design is a medium that has the opportunity to persuade its viewers. When Cho came to LMU she was inspired by their Jesuit mission of promoting social justice so she began to partner with the Center for Service and Action which connected her with nonprofits in Los Angeles.

Cho centered her design entrepreneurship class on a final student project that incorporated social justice work. She explained how a group of her students “worked with the Lamp Community in downtown Los Angeles, which has art and music programs for homeless people. The students developed a project to design a portable, solar-paneled cell-phone charger for homeless people, who aren’t always welcome in cafes or restaurants as a place to charge their phone.” Cho hopes that her students learn they can foster community and a commitment to social justice through their designs.

From August 10-13, 2017, Seattle University will host the Commitment to Justice in Jesuit Higher Education Conference.

Keynote speakers include

Eboo Patel, founder and president of Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC)

Rev. Bryan Massingale, professor at Fordham University and author specializing in social ethics, with teaching/research interests in the areas of racial justice, liberation theology, and Catholic Social Thought.

The Joan and Ralph Lane Center for Catholic Studies and Social Thought at the University of San Francisco has issued a call for papers on Catholic identity: How do you promote dialogue, formation, and critical engagement around Catholic identity in your context? Name the challenges, tensions, opportunities, and questions you encounter in your work.
Accepted essays will be published in our three-volume series:

Primary and Secondary Education

Service, Health Care, and Social Ministry

University Teaching, Research, and Administration

Featuring essays that bridge interdisciplinary research and community engagement, the Lane Center Series is a resource for social analysis, theological reflection, and education in the Jesuit tradition.

Submit your essay of approximately 3,500 words by August 15, 2017. For details, see the Lane Center website.

Rockhurst University students have formed a chapter of GoBabyGo!, a non-profit focused on child mobility. Students transform motorized toy cars into mobility vehicles for children, tailoring to their individual needs whether from a visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, or a condition that limits a child’s mobility, like spina bifida.

Child mobility is linked with cognitive development. As children are able to move freely, they are more able to develop decision-making skills and experience new things. These cars are significantly less expensive than many traditional mobility aides.

Rockhurst’s chapter of GoBabyGo! involves students who study physical therapy and engineering. In March 2015, they delivered their first vehicles to the Children Center for the Visually Impaired which was covered by local media, spurring more support for the project.

Cole Galloway, Ph.D., PT, founder of GoBabyGo, visited the Rockhurst chapter last fall, noting that the work is connected to the Jesuit values of social justice: “When you unpack this project, you see both sides–the science and the social justice. They go hand-in-hand. I think social justice is about listening to communities and getting behind them and fighting with them.”

To learn more about GoBabyGo! on Rockhurst’s campus, read the full article.

In February, the University of Scranton hosted “The Future of Refugee Resettlement”, an event hosted by the University of Scranton’s In Solidarity with Syria committee. The event consisted in a discussion with William Canny, executive director of Migration and Refugee Services for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Maggie Walsh, Scranton High School English as a Second Language teacher, both graduates of the University of Scranton. Their discussion focused on both the international challenges of refugees and the local manifestation of these issues in the Scranton community. Canny addressed the vetting process in place in the United States for refugees and the moral imperative to care for refugees. Walsh spoke to her personal experience of teaching refugee children and their struggles.

The In Solidarity with Syria committee is a coordinated advocacy effort involving university administrators, faculty, staff, alumni, and students to aid those affected by the current immigration crisis through education and advocacy.

Join Ignatian Solidarity Network on Thursday, February 16 at 3 PM EST for an online conversation with Jesuit college and university faculty and administrators on how to support students who are undocumented. A new political landscape in the U.S. has brought with it unique realities for people in the without documentation, including students at Jesuit colleges and universities. How are faculty and administrators responding to the changing reality facing these students?

As part of the Creighton Global Initiative (CGI), Creighton University has partnered with Lutheran Family Services to provide refugee families with aid in resettlement. Students spend their Friday afternoons shopping for necessities for a family migrating to the Omaha area. Setting up an apartment is the beginning of the resettlement process for refugees. This ministry encourages the students to remember the human face of the refugee crisis. One student, Sarah Huddleston, discovered that this service was different than others in the past because “It’s not just packing up my old clothes in a box and dropping them off and forgetting about it. It’s making a decision with the family in mind and trying to think about what you’d want if you were in a strange place, thousands of miles from your home.”

As René Padilla, executive director of global engagement, describes the program “Refugees are our neighbors…When we think of refugees we often hear the call to ‘welcome the stranger.’ And welcoming the stranger is a good first step. But in this increasingly interconnected world, these strangers are our neighbors and we need each other. Our hope is that this CGI project will help Creighton members to work with their refugee neighbors for justice.”

The Creighton Global Initiative is a program committed to expanding global learning by creating opportunities for heightened relationships, experiences and perspectives embracing Jesuit higher education’s centuries-long tradition for building global networks. Read more on this partnership to assist refugee families here.